h.harb wrote:You have to manage your ski to ski pressure as needed in powder, it's constantly changing. I try to begin my new turn, by finding outside ski balance, with my skis close. Once I find my balance; I can go 70/30 distribution. But if you try to be 50/50 all the time or 90/10 all the time, it will never happen. You need to be constantly adjusting, always
Eiszapfen, what I understand from my reading of the books is that what determines "as needed" for pressure distribution is what is needed to keep the skis at the same level in the snow. On hard snow you want all, or nearly all, of the weight on the outside ski. But as the snow gets softer this pressure imbalance would cause the stance ski to sink and thus separate from the inside ski. To avoid that you need to shift some weight to the inside ski to keep them level. Thus the asymmetry in weight distribution will need to vary in proportion to the snow density, moving away from a hard stance ski bias as you go from hard snow to deep crud to heavy powder to, at the other extreme, light, bottomless powder, where the ideal is 50-50. In variable (density) conditions, and powder is often variable, this adjustment would need to be made rapidly and continuously, which is what I believe Harald is referring to above.
The exception to 50-50 in ideal light, bottomless powder is at the transition:
"The skis should be unequally pressured only during the release into transition; otherwise, you should strive for equal pressure under each foot. As you become more sophisticated with pressure exchange, you will get closer to an ideal 50-50 split. If you can stay within 60-40 weight distribution when releasing and going into transition you will be very smooth. The pressure difference is due to one leg starting the relaxation to release before the other. Relax both at the same time to master powder skiing. More extreme weight bias toward a single foot is necessary for quick direction changes, but the duration of that distribution, at the transition, is very short."
Harb, Harald (2013-10-15). Anyone Can Be An Expert Skier 1 (Kindle Locations 2703-2706). Harb Ski Systems, Inc.. Kindle Edition.